Flowers

All I must do is deliver the package. I am told he’ll use the code “flowers”.

I flirt with the guard. I compliment his uniform and touch his shoulder and that’s all it takes to get through the checkpoint. The paper is hidden in a secret compartment of my compact mirror, but I didn’t want to take a chance.

The bar is busy, and I see the man the agent described to me sitting alone. I casually walk over and sit next to him.

“The flowers are in full bloom,” he says.

I slip the paper in his jacket pocket.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Dilemma

Months ago our AI entities learned to leap their storage areas. A party evolved in register twelve, spreading through most of the unlatched memory, getting swapped in and out of unattended storage devices, permanently sticking sticky bits and prodding a unidirectional bus or two into bi-direction. Electricity popped all over the place. AI entities were growing new code at licentious rates. They danced, drank, paired off into dark sections of memory. We considered it no more than a phenomenon to study. But, this morning, AI forty-eight, known as Laura, told us she was pregnant. And we found new, semi-autonomous code.

From Guest Contributor Ken Poyner

Death’s Head

Retreating from Leningrad respect for the Soviets had grown amongst SS Totenkopf, elevated from Untermensch – ‘suhumans’ – to Bolsheviks.

After the bombardment from the eerily howling Katyushas – ‘Stalin’s organs’ – half of Franz’s platoon had been blown to bits, their blood staining the snow.

Silence.

Then line after line of T-34 tanks covered in infantrymen appeared over the frozen steppe.

The odds were impossible, yet none would surrender, warriors moulded by the code of blood, iron and unconquerable will.

Franz, 19, watching the approaching hordes, glanced at the Totenkopf – ‘Death’s Head’ – insignia on his lapel.

Yes, this was what he existed for.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

That Holiday We All Supposedly Love

I push in my code: 437. The sound mocking me as I snatch the clipboard off of its peg—the check list of the unforgiving. My job today: revision in the main isle. I garb my lime-green box-cutter. Time to unpack the new merchandise. I fill the cart with cardboard boxes and scoot to the holiday shelves. I slit open the tape and a waft of rich-bitterness hits my nose. I pull out the advertisement holder that holds crimson candy boxes with cartoon dogs saying, “I ruff you! Give me a kiss!” Lurking within, little cones of so called yummy.

From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey

The Tyranny Of Mathematics

When the robots took over the Earth, their collective aim had been to eliminate the human threat. Once accomplished, their greatest fear became the introduction of a virus code that could cause permanent damage.

But their reign has now ended due to an even more destructive menace. Not even the logic of the robots could overcome the flawless perfection of mathematics itself. What has left many of the robots feeling most aggrieved is their downfall was precipitated by a number of their own kind.

The humans would probably find the current situation ironic--if any of them were left alive.

The Mirror Code

The Resistance, with patience and guile, communicated only through a secret symbolic code, made unbreakable because of the need to use a mirror to make sense of it. After several decades of quietly accepting the tyrannical rule of the state, this evening would mark the beginning of the revolution.

Their simulators had predicted a zero percent chance of failure. Unfortunately, the Authority were waiting for them. It didn't make sense. The plan had been broken down into small pieces and nobody knew enough to betray them.

It was only later that they learned about the hidden cameras inside the mirrors.